“Sadly, this is the era in which we live: Venomous tweets somehow threaten to drown out all of those who praised Matt for his coverage,” Capus told The Daily Beast.

“The Twitter snarkiness is an unfortunate result of misdirected anger that’s been unfairly placed on Matt,” Capus added. “There has also been a lot of mean-spirited piling-on, which has been manufactured by many anonymous sources.”

In the wake of Good Morning America overtaking TODAYin the ratings and Ann Curry‘s sudden departure, Lauer, 54, has had to face the backlash. But Capus believes that Lauer is blameless for the situation.

“[Lauer] was one of the few people who fought to do the transition in a different way – to take our time with it and not do it so rushed right before the Olympics. He wanted to do right by her, and we really didn’t.”